There Is No Inherent Meaning in the Universe

This post arose out of thinking over my sister-in-law Rachel's very valid objection to Jahweh: His Remarkable Rise that I was possibly confusing deity & divinity in that piece of writing.

Monotheism: it's not the outcome of the history of ideas, it's just another stage in that history.

I am prepared to accept a kind of ultimate divinity - but - it is one which is unknown & unknowable, in the sense of whatever you say or think about it, it is not that - like the Tao, or apophatic theology in the Christian tradition. As it says at the very opening of the Tao te Ching:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

- trans. Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English

This Divinity is beyond the capacity of human conceptualisation. It is certainly not God the father or the Trinity.

(In passing, the Trinity is never referred to by Jesus, it appears nowhere in the Gospels. You can see how it can be derived from the Gospels, but it is not actually present in them as an idea.)

So what is the point of It, this unknowable Divinity ?

There isn't one. I don't believe there is any ultimate meaning in life, or that the Universe or Nature has any intentions for us. The Universe & everything in it are simply a set of processes working themselves out. The Universe doesn't mean anything, & that doesn't matter. The only meanings there are are the ones we ascribe, individually &/or collectively. These meanings are not inherent in the Universe, & discovered by us. We put them there in the first place.

So - if the Universe is meaningless, if there's no God commanding, or Divinity to discover & conform to, what is the basis of morality ? The basis of morality is practical. Certain behaviours lead to better outcomes for everybody, & that is desirable.

What I am saying here is not The Truth, it is my Truth.

With these kind of speculations, I may not know, but I know that you don't know either. The one thing I know for sure is that nobody, neither me nor you, knows anything for sure about the ultimate purpose of life.

I am most definitely not arguing that nothing can be known. If my left foot is chopped off, that's a fact. If I leave the house at 11.26 as opposed to any other time, that's a fact. If I catch a disease & die, that's a fact. It is precisely because in my opinion there are such things as certain facts that I am arguing that the nature of the Divine, & the ultimate nature & purpose (if any) of the Universe & of human life are not among these certain facts. All there ever can be is a given individual's best guess.

So what of the gods & goddesses I mentioned in Jahweh: His Remarkable Rise ? To me, the gods are personifications of psychological forces within humans, & of natural phenomena. I do not think there is any externally existing God, or gods. The gods are metaphors. They are particularly rich & powerful culturally invested & sanctioned metaphors.

The lack of inherent meaning does not mean we are abandoned, because there never was anyone or anything there to start off with. It means we are free to discover our own meaning. Does this inevitably lead to a philosophical free-for-all ? Absolutely. The more the merrier.

Jahweh: His Remarkable Rise

"Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages
Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests."

- Jim Morrison, 'An American Prayer'


Jahweh or Jehovah, if I may name that god so familiarly, has had a remarkable journey from obscure Bronze Age tribal deity to his present exalted position - if we identify him with Allah - as Boss of 3 of the world's major religions.

It's like the spread of coffee from its home in Ethiopia to its status now of being consumed throughout the world.

The spread of an idea is like the spread of a commodity. People pass it on because they like it & because it suits them, & other people new to it accept it & incorporate it into their lives for the same reason. At least, that's when it happens benignly. Less happily, ideas & commodities are also spread by force & conquest of course, & here resemble the spread of disease.

I cannot accept that Jahweh/Jehovah/Allah/God the Father/God the Trinity is the one true God. How can the Trinity be simultaneously 3 gods & 1 god anyway ? Rowan Williams might know; he is apparently one of the leading experts in the world on the Trinity. But at first glance it doesn't seem very likely; & I strongly suspect that once Occam's Razor had been to work on the reasons why the Trinity is in fact 1 god, they would be left looking pretty tattered.

I recognise Jahweh as a god, but not the one true God. I reserve the right to worship some or all of the Celtic, Norse/Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Egyptian & Romano-British gods & goddesses, all of whom are in my cultural inheritance as an Englishman and a European. For me personally I would include Woden, Thor, Aphrodite, Demeter, Isis & Osiris. More primally, I reserve the right to worship directly the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Sky, the Earth & the Sea, Sacred Animals; & to experience the sacred & the numinous wherever I find it.* You may say this is rather a mish-mash, but isn't Christianity, in terms of its ritual & iconography, just such a mish-mash ?

If we take Christianity & Islam together (I can't find a reliable figure for the current total number of adherents to Judaism), Jahweh/Allah has 3.7 billion adherents who regard him exclusively as the one true God - 2.2 billion Christians & 1.5 billion Muslims. He hardly needs me as well.

In this connection, you will be acquainted I suggest with the terms polytheism, monotheism, atheism, agnosticism, deism, animism, & pantheism. But have you heard of the term henotheism ? I stumbled across it while reading about religion in the Classical world. It means you have one god who you personally, or as a tribe or a cult, venerate in particular, but that you are perfectly happy at the same time to recognise the validity of all gods & godesses whatsoever. A position of total tolerance. It strikes me as supremely civilised. And dangerous to the exclusive claims of Christianity, Judaism & Islam, which is why I think you never hear the term. It's suppressed as an option. The options you're presented with are the ones I named at the start of this paragraph, which are in fact the possibilities of religious belief & practice viewed from a monotheistic perspective, one that regards monotheism as true, right & natural.

When it comes to Christianity, I don't hear the term henotheism. The terms I do hear are heresy, schism, anathema, excommunication & idolatry.

On the subject of idolatry, I find it singular that the Christian Church, East & West, condemns idolatry so roundly while at the very same time practicing it so enthusiastically. It's odd sometimes to see a copy of The Ten Commandments set up in a church which is simultaneously full to bursting with graven images. The proscription of graven images in The Ten Commandments is explicit & insistent, & Muslims & observant Jews in general follow it's obvious & intended meaning. The proscription of graven images from The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 is worth quoting in full because of the stress it is given, & the prominence, being the Second Commandment:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the the third & fourth generation of them that hate me;

& shewing mercy to thousands of them that love me, & keep my commandments.

Now, in a pagan world, not having graven images is a ready & highly visible way to distinguish your religion from all the others around you, who precisely do have graven images which they venerate.

The Christian Church defends its use of graven images by asserting it is not idolatry to have them, because the worshiper does not worship the image itself but rather what it represents. This is sheer sophistry. The proscription in the Second Commandment is perfectly clear & straightforward. There have often been iconoclastic movements & controversies in both the Eastern & Western Churches, & quite rightly so.

The Christian use of images is an excellent example of the fact that mores are vastly more important in terms of their effect on human behaviour than the official morality that people are supposed to be following at a given time. Mores shape almost everything, morality virtually nothing.

A final thought on Christianity. It has always struck me as funny, and so human, that the opposing factions in Christianity call themselves Catholic, meaning universal when it is nothing of the kind, & Orthodox, meaning 'Right-Believing', or 'Just so you're clear, We're Right & Everyone Else is Wrong.'

It's not Sacred - it's sacred to you !


With thanks & respect to Xenophanes, William of Occam & Voltaire. Further reading: The Lost Gods of England by Brian Branston.

*Before I wrote this, I had no idea I was such an old hippy. But let it stand .....

The Day I Met Jackson Browne

Although of course I remember the encounter vividly, I was extremely unsure when it exactly happened. The extent of my uncertainty is shown by this: the only way for me to tie down the date was to look back through my diaries for each year in turn, & I started off with 2006, '07 & '08 because I guessed it had happened in one of those three. But as it turns out it was longer ago than I thought (the value of keeping good records !), in 2004 - Thursday 21st of October in fact at about 15.00 hrs, that I, improbable as it seems, met Jackson Browne. I recorded it in my diary in the following words, which now seem extraordinarily laconic for such an unlikely & significant occurrence, but which will do as well as any other way:

21 Thursday

15.00 ran into Jackson Browne outside Track

Those who know me will confirm that I lead a very retired & sedentary life, like Descartes & Montaigne; I rarely go anywhere or do anything, & am a creature of routine; which makes it all the more unaccountable that I of all people should meet someone like Jackson Browne, a famous musician who comes from & lives in another country, almost a separate planet. How it came about was as follows:

That Thursday was my day off, & I was coming back from my usual walk along the river. I turned into High Ousegate, where at the time was a well-known independent record shop called Track Records (long since closed, killed off by the Internet). Track had spinners of cds to browse in their doorway, & as I turned into the street I saw a figure browsing those spinners who I realised with a shock was very possibly, of all people in the world on a humdrum autumn afternoon in York, Jackson Browne. You see, I knew he was playing in York round about this time, and, thinking about it, what could be more natural for a musician to do on the afternoon before the gig than to have a mooch in some record shops ? Anyway, the figure went into the shop. Without stopping to consider, I went up to the doorway of the shop & peeped in to see if I could get a better view of the person. I had a clear view; it was indeed more than likely Jackson Browne in the flesh. (I identified him from old footage I'd seen from The Old Grey Whistle Test, & I suppose photos I'd seen in music magazines over the years.)

So, there he was at the counter in the shop either buying something or just chatting to the staff. I was in a quandary, & had to make up my mind fast. How exactly do you accost someone so randomly ? I felt very English all of a sudden. I didn't want to bother him. Would it annoy him ? Would he find it intrusive ? Had I even got the right person ? What decided me was, this chance was presenting itself to me, & I had to take it now or lose it forever. So I waited excitedly outside the shop until he came out.

When he did so, I stopped him and mumbled in the best English manner,"I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but are you Jackson Browne?" He said "Yes, I am !", & I put my hand out & we shook hands. My heart was beating wildly. I had a great rush of adrenalin. At the time I couldn't account for this. Later, as I thought about it, I realised why it was. I can't remember what we talked about particularly. We stood there, in High Ousegate, Thursday afternoon outside Track for about 5 minutes. He asked me what were my favourite albums of his - now, as it happens I hardly know Jackson Browne's music at all, then or now - so I said the one I do know, Saturate Before Using, one of his early ones (whose title has always puzzled me - it's evidently a reference I don't get). He seemed a bit vexed, I'm not sure about this but I think so, that I was as it were 'stuck' in his early work; that often annoys song-writers, they feel the audience is restricting them in a nostalgic way which is oppressive to them, not allowing them to age, change, grow. He asked me if I was coming to the concert that night. I answered firmly that I wasn't; in those days public events of any kind terrified me. And that was that. We shook hands again & parted, he back into the rest of his life, & me likewise. All in all he was gracious, friendly & down-to-earth. In fact I was a little taken aback that he was quite small & thin, an ordinary size; he ought to have been gigantic.

As I walked home, I was puzzled myself as to why I was so blown away by meeting him. Surely it wasn't just because (to people with taste in music like mine anyway) he was famous ? As I teased it out, I realised there were four principle reasons, all to do with the complex subject of the memories music lays down involuntarily as we progress through life & then evokes later.

The first was not so much to do with Jackson Browne himself, but the milieu of song-writers of which he is a part, many of whom are great favourites, even heroes, of mine. Encountering him in real life was like meeting a living link with Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Joan Baez & all the California early-70s crowd, it was almost like meeting them all embodied in him, he was somehow a conduit or channel for them. That's how I excitedly put it to myself, hardly able to believe that I really had met him: "He's met David Crosby !" As a very young man, Jackson as I knew was involved with The Factory in New York as well before he moved back to California, so he was a link to all of that powerful medicine as well.

The second reason is to do with the song I am listening to as I write this. When I was 15, starting to play guitar & absorbing styles from those players I knew, I had a friend called Ange who played guitar & had a beautiful voice. She must have introduced me to Jackson Browne's music because she used to sing a song I thought was called Morocco, because that word occurs prominently in the chorus, but is in fact called Something Fine & is on Saturate Before Using. It's a haunting song, & her version was too.

The third reason is to do with how I learned to play the guitar. My eldest brother JP is a player, & he showed me a few chords & above all barre chords. Then I got one of those thin guitar-case chord books (I still have it, the same one) to further my education. One major method I had of teaching myself was to get scores out of the Central Library. If you think about it, only scores where I knew the music in the first place (since I can't sight-read) & were simple enough for me to have a chance of playing them were of any use to me - & of course my choice was limited by what the library had on offer. They had a copy of the music for Saturate Before Using (other invaluable ones were of The Wall & The Final Cut by Pink Floyd), & I ploughed through it, playing what I could. So, as it turns out, Jackson Browne was unwittingly one of my major guitar teachers. That deep innocent thrill of playing something that sounds even remotely, however stumblingly, like what's coming out of the speakers, what's coming off the record ! And they were records or tapes in those days; this took place in the second half of the 80s.

The fourth reason is that Jackson's song Late For the Sky is used by Martin Scorsese as the soundtrack to a very powerful scene in Taxi Driver. It's quite late on in the film, & Travis is just sat in his small apartment watching television. There's a pop programme on, with teenagers dancing to Late for the Sky. Their carefree enjoyment forms an awful contrast with Travis' isolation as he watches, & you can see the pain, anger & loneliness in his face. Late for the Sky is a very poignant song to start off with; its use in this scene heightens the effect both of it & the scene itself greatly. I used to be obsessed with Taxi Driver. The first 3-quarters of the film, before Travis goes completely nuts, I related to very strongly indeed, in a way that's hard to convey or recapture once it's gone, which it has. I used to have a big Taxi Driver poster showing Travis walking up the street towards the camera, which I loved, in my kitchen; and I always thought it was a good & healthy thing when I took it down & put it away. So meeting Jackson himself brought up in an instant all those powerful forgotten feelings associated with Taxi Driver.

It was a power moment, no doubt about it.

Written & proofed to the accompaniment of Saturate Before Using.

5 Guidelines for English Prose Style

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."

- George Orwell, Politics & the English Language, in Inside The Whale & Other Essays, p.154


Here are 5 guidelines for English prose style:


1. Make sure your choice of words and syntax accurately reflect your meaning. This is easily said, but it is basic, and a large part of the whole craft of writing clearly lies in understanding and applying this rule.


2. Spell properly. The dictionary is your invaluable companion in this and in Rule 1.


3. In general, avoid cliche, except for the purposes of satire.


4. Write in the style appropriate to your subject. For example, to get tremendously worked up over something trivial is absurd. This is a common fault of newspaper columnists, who, with honourable exceptions, are often short of meaningful material to write about.


Which leads to Rule 5:


5. Don't write unless you genuinely have something to say. What follows may sound like a high claim, but writing is a Magical art, and it is abusing that Art to engage in it when you don't really have something to say. It is trading with the Lower Powers, & no good will come of it.


Further reading:


Orwell's Politics & the English Language, where the epigraph comes from, is fundamental to this topic.

James Murdoch at the CMS Committee Again

This further to my post for Teudsay 6th September, 'Phone Hacking Latest.'

James Murdoch gave evidence at the Culture, Media & Sport Committee again today.

During his testimony, it seemed that everything wrong that had happened at The News of the World (that it did is not in dispute, just what James knew about it & when) was somebody else's fault: either that of his subordinates, Tom Crone & Colin Myler, for concealing the extent of the phone-hacking from him; or of the Met Police, for saying they were satisfied there was nothing further to investigate (John Yates on the other hand when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee insisted that New International was at fault for blocking his investigation - & this is a running feature in much of the testimony so far in Hackgate, everyone insisting it is someone else's fault); or of News International's lawyers, again for not informing him of the evidence they had.

James giving testimony came across to me as a fluent liar, but that is not enough, it won't do. There was a mass of evidence that phone-hacking was widespread at NotW but miraculously James saw none of it, he claimed. He kept asserting that before Summer 2011 he had no knowledge of the extent of phone-hacking - he thought it was limited to Clive Goodman - & I simply don't believe him. James gave his evidence with great confidence & aplomb, but the substance of it didn't make any sense. He seemed to be giving it in Mirrorland, where almost everything he said the opposite was actually the case. The idea that James signed off on the settlement for Gordon Taylor without requesting or seeking any further details as to why the case would inevitably be lost if it came to court, as he stated over & over again in his evidence today & in July, is incredible, in the strict sense of that word.

James is either complicit in the cover-up or incompetent/negligent. I can only presume that he prefers to be seen as the latter.

Other aspects:

It was fantastic when Tom Watson said to James: "Have you heard the term omerta - the code of silence ?"

The For Neville Email is like the Grassy Knoll in the JFK Assassination, it keeps cropping up.

A parallel between Hackgate & the Eurozone Crisis is that they have both passed the point where nothing surprises me anymore.

One link between Hackgate & Watergate is that illegal surveillance & the attempt to cover-up the fact that it had happened is at the centre of both scandals. In this regard Derek Webb, the surveillance expert used by NotW who has just emerged, reminds me rather of Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation.

Good Music & Bad Music

It has just occurred to me that a common factor among almost all my friends & acquaintances is a love of music, & taking music seriously, thinking about it, discussing it; we all love what we each consider good music, and condemn what we regard as bad music.

Now, Louis Armstrong, in terms of the reach of his influence & the consequences of his career, is one of the best & most important musicians ever, certainly in the field of popular music. (This is the case, I accept no disagreement on this one, & if you don't know why you need to do some research.) Louis said something to the effect of:

"There is no classical & jazz music, there is only good music & bad music."

Classical or jazz or any other style, music has to swing, the musicians have to mean it; and the difference between being on the money & not when it comes to music is plain, even if hard to define in words. This applies to all genres. The kind of swing is just different in each, but always there needing to be found. I'm not in any way being facetious. I'm in deadly earnest. Anyone who has heard a Baroque orchestra play with verve & bite will understand what I mean by swing in classical music. It's about all the musicians coordinating so the piece begins to take off, & the audience with it. When playing, the musicians need to be tight but loose. This is a paradox in description, but not in action.

Charles Shaar Murray, who is a superb rock critic, author of fabulous books about Jimi Hendrix (Crosstown Traffic) & John Lee Hooker (Boogie Man), came up with a very funny idea, which once you start to think about it in practice actually makes you think very hard about music & its quality - he suggested a record shop in which everything was organised into one of only two categories: Good Music & Bad Music.

Remember: It don't mean a thing - if it ain't got that swing.

On Being Wrong, & On Conversion

"I've seen religion, from Jesus to Paul."

- John Lennon, I Found Out


Many people think,"If my enemy is wrong, I must be right." But this is not true. My enemy or opponent can be wrong, genuinely wrong, & I can be wrong as well at the same time. My enemy's wrongness does not automatically validate my position. Both parties to a dispute can be wrong.

You may object that applying this makes it impossible ever to decide who is right or wrong, or who is which in which combination or mixture; that all one can do is float reading the newspaper in a Dead Sea of indecision. Not at all. It is simply a permanent caveat in this impermanent World.

A similar idea applies to the experience of conversion in the individual. Just because I've been converted, it doesn't mean I've gone from wrong to right. I can be wrong before conversion, & wrong in a different way, or in the same way but expressing it differently, afterwards. St.Paul - going from Saul to Paul & the Road to Damascus (Acts, ch.9) being one of the great paradigms of the experience of conversion - & St.Augustine of Hippo seem to me prime examples of this; they were wrong before conversion, & wrong in a different way afterwards.

You can see the continuity before & after in St.Paul's personality in action; whether against or for Christianity, whatever he thought & believed, he was going to do something about it. As Saul he was wrong to persecute the new sect. His strong reaction against it surely betrays a secret attraction, as is so often the case with Inquisitors, which prepared the ground for the Road to Damascus. After his conversion, Paul was equally insistent that Jesus was the only true route to salvation, which if you're not a Christian is a highly contestable position, granting that 'salvation' of some kind is even necessary. I can argue that Christianity is offering me the solution to a problem I don't have in the first place, creating a problem where there isn't one; that I am in a state of lacking God's grace. If there is no God in the Christian sense, then I cannot lack his grace. Salvation as a metaphor for psychic development is a different matter. I may well be in need of that. To be fair to Christianity, what matters is the actual experience & not the cultural label clumsily attached to it.

When I hear St.Paul preaching Christianity, my reaction is to shout out with the craftsmen & people of Ephesus, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" Things move on though, & it is as anachronistic to worship the Classical gods & goddesses, however attractive, as it is to write a play in blank-verse.

This proposition that one can be wrong both before & after conversion is one of the things that Camus is getting at in La Chute, although he never states it explicitly that I can remember. This is one of the reasons I find that book so powerful.

A thought to leave you with: western Christianity in my opinion has far more to do with Paul & Augustine than it does with Jesus.

Against Coldplay

The following was prompted most immediately by catching Coldplay at the end of Later Live .... with Jools last night. Behind it lies their appearance at Glastonbury this year, & a close acquaintance with what I hesitate to call their oeuvre, acquired unwillingly while working in retail, in a shop that sold music to be exact. My time in retail coincided closely with Coldplay's rise to prominence. I vividly recall Parachutes gradually becoming a bigger & bigger hit. All their subsequent albums were played *cough* extensively in the shop. So I know whereof I speak.


Of all the bands that have high reputations, Coldplay seem to me to deserve theirs the least. The appeal of Coldplay eludes me, especially given their level of success, which I find almost inexplicable. It's not that I can see they are good in some sense but just not to my taste; I don't admit that they're good at all.

Coldplay seem to me the dullest band in the world. Here's another song exactly like the last, which was rubbish, with no memorable melody & indifferent lyrics. Even their name itself - Coldplay. What does that mean ? A dull label for dull contents. Vacuous, thin, vague, pointless, hollow.

The only reason that I can think of for their success is that many people must want 'music' that is unchallenging, easy, substanceless, that doesn't upset them or invite them to think. Coldplay are the Indy-stadium eqivalent of Mantovani or James Last.

One of the tests of quality in Art is, "Would the world be a poorer place without it ?" Coldplay emphatically fail this test. If they had never existed, nothing would have been lost.

On Being Walloped Right Between The Eyes

The following is a list of those rare things that walloped me right between the eyes the first time I encountered them, a moment in each case of being transfixed by its effectiveness & utter relevance:


1. Sweet Sir Galahad by Joan Baez, performed at Woodstock.


2. The film Le Feu Follet ,directed by Louis Malle.


3. A Heart Needs A Home by Richard & Linda Thompson, performed on The Old Grey Whistle Test.


This experience is infrequent & extremely personal. A major part of the impact is precisely that the impact is unforeseen, unanticipated.

This puts these particular items in a special category for me all of their own. The initial contact, the lightning-strike, is beyond enjoyment; it is about absolute recognition.

Before, I am sitting down just to give them a go, see if they're any good or not, but something quite different happens ....

.... do you know the feeling ? What are your equivalents ?

The Opening of 'Tous Les Matins du Monde'

(The following is a transcription* of the monologue from the opening of the film Tous Les Matins du Monde, written by Alain Corneau & Pascal Quignard. It is delivered by Gerard Depardieu, playing the French composer Marin Marais (1656-1728) in old age. Marais was a very important Court musician at this time, and is supervising a lesson with a large group of students .... he becomes impatient with what he appears to regard as the nonsense being talked by the sub-instructors, who are actually taking the lesson .... he calls for a viola da gamba & plays the start of a piece of music ... then he orders the shutters to be closed, & in almost-darkness he begins to reminisce about his own teacher, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe .... he appears completely transported, lost in memory, & says :)


Austérité. Il n'était qu'austérité et colère. Il était muet comme un poisson..... Je suis un imposteur [murmurs of dissent from the students], et je ne vaux rien [louder murmurs] .... J'ai ambitionné le néant, j'ai récolté le néant; du sucre, des louis, et la honte .... Lui, il était la musique. Il a tout regardé le monde avec la grande flamme du flambeau qu'on allume au mourant. Je ne suis pas venu au bout de son désir .... J'avais un Maître. Les ombres l'ont pris. Il s'appellait Monsieur de Sainte Colombe ....


Austerity. He was nothing but austerity & anger. He was mute like fish .... I am an impostor [murmurs of dissent from the students], & I'm worthless [louder murmurs] .... I aspired to nothingness, I reaped nothingness; some sugar, some gold coins, and shame .... As for him, he was music itself. He always looked at the world under the great flame of the torch that is lit for the dying. I didn't live up to what he wanted for me .... I had a Master. The shadows took him. He was called Monsieur de Sainte Colombe ....



* Since this is a transcription there may well be errors in the grammar.

'Prezza' - John Prescott

I'm reading Whatever It Takes by Steve Richards at the moment, which is an excellent account & examination of the New Labour years focusing on Gordon Brown. I'm also reading Tony Blair's autobiography, A Journey. Inevitably the subject of John Prescott comes up a lot in both. You could regard him as the third person in the Triumvirate, junior to Tony Blair & Gordon Brown but absolutely indispensable.

John Prescott was crucial to the New Labour project for two reasons. First, someone was needed who was sufficiently powerful to hold the ring between Gordon Brown & Tony Blair in their remarkably bad relationship, and to broker temporary truces when things went completely awry. Second, Tony Blair needed a person who could sell New Labour to the grass-roots of the Party, and reassure them because there was someone they trusted at the heart of both Government and the Party.

The one person who could do all this was John Prescott.

Being able to fulfil all of these functions at once is what gave Prezza his immense power in the New Labour Government, his heading of the vast super-Department of Transport, Environment & the Regions.

BUT .....

Prezza's position in the third Triumvir always reminds me of an exchange between Mark Antony & Octavian in Julius Caesar (4.1.11-40). The subject is Lepidus, their third Triumvir. It's worth quoting in full. Antony & Octavian, having seen off the conspirators who assassinated Caesar and taken power in Rome, are agreeing who is to be proscribed i.e. written on the list of who is to be executed as an enemy and political opponent. Lepidus was with them, but Antony has just sent him off on an errand. Antony starts talking about him:


Antony : This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it ?


Octavian: So you thought him,
And took his voice who should be prick'd to die
In our black sentence and proscription.


Antony : Octavius, I have seen more days than you;
And though we lay these honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers sland'rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load, and turn him off,
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,
And graze in commons.


Octavian: You may do your will;
But he's a tried and valiant soldier.


Antony : So is my horse, Octavius, and for that
I do appoint him store of provender.
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly on,
His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit.
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so:
He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth:
A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations,
Which, out of use and stal'd by other men,
Begin his fashion. Do not talk of him
But as a property.

What is Bulletins for ?

This blog, Bulletins, is quite simply a flexible vehicle for me to express whatever is uppermost in my mind at the time of writing.

Every so often, I return to working intensely on the mosaic in my head, which is my Understanding.

It is also like a collage which is being perpetually rearranged: some elements added, some cut; some emphasised, some diminished; some urgent, some underlying & essential.

The collage is perpetually in flux, sometimes rapidly & sometimes very slowly, but always, to a greater or lesser extent, waxing & waning like the Moon.

<--------------------------------------------->

Holding a thought safely until I can pour it into my notebook is like carrying a cup full to the brim with precious liquid.

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Here's an image of the process of writing for you. It's what I imagine throwing a pot is like (I've only seen it done, not done it myself.) The lump of clay is your original idea or set of ideas. Throwing it on the potter's wheel is the equivalent of drafting; the slip is your knowledge of grammar and the nuts & bolts of language. Putting the piece of writing into its final form is like firing the pot. Lastly comes publishing the piece, which is like putting the finished pot on display on a stand, for people to make of it what they will.

<--------------------------------------------->

In a magical ritual, an invocation, you perform a certain set of gestures & words. In music, in writing it is exactly the same. Hence these activities have a correspondence to Magic. It's just the same in acting, painting, sculpture - all the Arts. Sport & cooking also. All these activities have resemblances to one another, and all contain the possibility of Magic, as does Magic itself. For a magic ritual badly performed will not succeed.

As regards Sport, think of the similarity between the Magician's circle on the ground within which he or she works, and the diagrams likewise - think of the similarity between that and the markings on a pitch for any given sport.

The ritual also takes place in Time. On this subject Napoleon had an apposite insight, specifically about battles. He said:

All battles are concerned with Space & Time. Space you can regain, Time never.

<--------------------------------------------->

Writing projects Thought through Space & Time. Is that not the fulfilment of a Magician's Dream ?

Russia & US Both Back Their Strategic Partners in MENA*

Last night in the UN Security Council, Russia & China both vetoed a European-drafted UN Security Council Resolution which threatened sanctions against the government of Bashar al-Assad if it does not stop its crackdown on its civilian opponents in Syria. The vote was 9-2, with 4 abstentions - India, South Africa, Brazil & Lebanon.You can find the details in the following articles: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15181794, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hxy8J12x2Z7wmSMAkRiTS3OphFRg?docId=N0768781317806676225A
,http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-05/russia-to-resist-western-led-regime-change-after-syria-veto.html

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said regarding the failure of the resolution: "...the courageous people of Syria can now clearly see who on this council supports their yearning for liberty and human rights - and who does not."

One of the main motives of the Russian govt. for vetoing the resolution is that it is supporting its strategic partner in the region, Syria. The Russians have a servicing point for naval vessels at the Syrian port of Tartus, their only military facility outside the former Soviet Union. This support despite the consistent & ongoing human rights' abuses of the Syrian govt., the fact that it has killed at the very least 2,700 of its own citizens in its crackdown against dissent since March this year, & injured, arrested & tortured many more.

The Russian govt. is only doing what the US govt. does as well though - supporting its strategic partners in the region. In the case of the US, in MENA these include Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Bahrain, President Saleh in Yemen, & until very recently Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The US 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain & has its headquarters there. Human rights' abuses are nothing like on the same scale in Bahrain as in Syria, nevertheless they also take place there. For instance, the Bahraini govt. in September sentenced 20 medics to between 5 & 15 years in prison simply for treating people injured during anti-government protests in March (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15105270)

Furthermore, human rights' abuses are not incidental to the govt. of Saudi Arabia, which supported & supplied troops to the crackdown in Bahrain, in their country but systematic & intrinsic. So they were in the Egypt of Hosni Mubarak, which the US supported for 30 years.

President Obama said in the UN General Assembly on 22nd September this year that he will veto the request to the UN of the Palestinian Authority to have recognition of Palestine as a full member state if that request goes to the Security Council. This is another example of the US govt. backing a strategic partner in the region, in this case Israel. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15033357)

Russia & the US both back their strategic partners in the region. It is easy to condemn the human rights' abuses of the strategic partners of another Power.


*MENA is a useful acronym you may not be familiar with. It stands for 'the Middle East & North Africa'.

BBC response to me re David Starkey on Newsnight, 12.8.11

Dear Mr Brown

Thank you for contacting us regarding ‘Newsnight’, broadcast on Friday 12 August.

We understand some viewers felt David Starkey's contribution to the discussion on the England riots was inappropriate and racially offensive. We note some viewers also felt Dr Starkey's views were not sufficiently challenged by presenter Emily Maitlis.

Firstly, it is important to stress that Dr Starkey’s views are his alone and not those of ‘Newsnight’ or the BBC. It is part of ‘Newsnight's remit to air and challenge controversial views and we believe his perspective on the riots was robustly challenged during the course of this discussion.

The aim of this, at times heated, ten minute debate was to examine the causes of the recent riots and looting and in many ways it encapsulated different strands of opinion, both ideologically and socio-economically, as to what provoked the violence. Presenter Emily Maitlis directly challenged David Starkey’s views on a number of occasions, asking: ‘Is black culture the cause of the rioting?’ and ultimately ending the discussion by asserting that Dr Starkey was ‘using black and white cultures interchangeably as good and bad’.

Aside from Emily Maitlis’ interjections, guests Owen Jones and Dreda Say Mitchell clearly took exception to David Starkey’s opinions and were given ample time and space to make their disagreements heard. Owen Jones particularly highlighted that many people listening would find the views expressed offensive, and Emily Maitlis provided further context - making it clear that David Cameron had stated that this was not a race issue, and that people taking part in the riots came from a range of ethnic backgrounds.

Although some viewers found David Starkey’s arguments offensive, others agreed with them. It is not ‘Newsnight's’ job to censor the views of our guests; the programme would rather challenge them in a robust way on air, and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. We believe this discussion was conducted in a fair and professional manner.

Please be assured your concerns were raised with the programme.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us.

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.

Kind Regards

BBC Audience Services

Ed Miliband Gives Benefit Claimants a Thorough Kicking

Last Tuesday (27th Sept 2011) Ed Miliband delivered his speech as Leader to the Labour Party Conference. You can read the full text here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15081234

I have excerpted 4 passages which are the context of what I am going to say.

Ed on Business:

1. You've been told all growth is the same, all ways of doing business are the same. But it's not. You've been told that the choice in politics is whether parties are pro-business or anti-business. But all parties must be pro-business today. If it ever was, that's not the real choice any more. Let me tell you what the 21st century choice is:

Are you on the side of the wealth creators or the asset strippers?

The producers or the predators?

Producers train, invest, invent, sell. Things Britain does brilliantly. Predators are just interested in the fast buck, taking what they can out of the business. This isn't about one industry that's good and another that isn't. Or one firm always destined to be a predator and another to be a producer. It's about different ways of doing business, ways that the rules of our economy can favour or discourage.

Ed on Benefit Claimants:

2. The something for nothing of celebrity culture. The take what you can of the gangs. And in parts of some of our communities, a life on benefits. You know what your values are. But they are not the values being rewarded in our benefits system. We must never excuse people who cheat the welfare system. The reason I talk about this is not because I don't believe in a welfare state but because I do. We can never protect and renew it if people believe it's just not fair. If it's too easy not to work. And there are people taking something for nothing. And if at the same time people who have paid into the system all their lives find the safety net full of holes. No wonder people are angry.

3. So we need a new bargain at the top of society, and in our benefits system too. So it rewards the right people with the right values. But it isn't delivering that. And we've got to fix it. If you think putting it right means just stripping away welfare then you are better off with Iain Duncan Smith and David Cameron. But at the same time we have to face the truth. Even after reforms of recent years, we still have a system where reward for work is not high enough. Where benefits are too easy to come by for those who don't deserve them and too low for those who do. So if what you want is a welfare system that works for working people then I'm prepared to take the tough decisions to make that a reality.

4. I believe in a benefits system with values. And I believe in the value of work.

Both people in business & Benefit Claimants felt demeaned & caricatured by Ed Miliband in his speech. Ed's message on both of these sections of our society was reinforced by interviews given by Sadiq Khan (Shadow Justice Secretary, who ran Ed's campaign for the leadership) & Andy Burnham (Shadow Education Secretary) subsequent to the speech. The idea they are touting is of replacing what they call the something for nothing culture with a something for something culture.

The difference between people in business & Benefit Claimants is in their ability to respond to these attacks. Successful businessmen & leaders of business organisations were all over the News rebutting Ed's swipe at them; they are perfectly well able to defend themselves.

Not so Benefit Claimants. None of them were asked for their view on Ed's claims that it's too easy not to work, how much reality that depiction contains. As a description of the Benefits System, Ed's is about 10 years out of date. Ed either knows this, in which case he is consciously lying, or he doesn't, & therefore doesn't know what he's on about. Either is bad, the first possibly worse.

This is what makes Ed's attack on Benefit Claimants all the more disgusting. He is kicking a group who can't kick back, & who don't form a large enough bloc of voters for it to matter what they think. Ed is playing to the prejudices of the crucial swing-voters whose votes he seeks. It's cost-free for him, but not for the actual Benefit Claimants he is merrily joining in stigmatising.

If pressed, Ed would say that he only means some Benefit Claimants.

Imagine if he got up & said, "Some Black people are alright, but as for those dirty Niggers ..."

(It's worth comparing what Ed M had to say about Welfare reform with what Iain Duncan Smith said subsequently at the Tory Conference: http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/10/Iain_Duncan_Smith_Our_contract_with_the_country_for_21st_Century_Welfare.aspx

As far as I'm concerned, they are interchangeable. IDS just says it at greater length.)

ADDENDUM: I predict that Ed Miliband will not make it as Leader of the Labour Party to the 2015 election. He will be unseated because his personal ratings & those of the Party in the opinion polls will remain too low. Ed Balls will also not be Shadow Chancellor by 2015.

Cheap Notebooks vs Ones That Are More Expensive

"& no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, & the wine is spilled, & the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles."

- Mark 2.22

This could be a rationalisation for indulging a taste for stationery that is more expensive, BUT:

Do you think the quality of the notebook actually affects the quality of the thoughts put in it ? Will a cheaper notebook worsen my thoughts ?

On the face of it, this seems crazy, but the reason I ask is because I filled my last good quality notebook recently, & went on to a cheaper one because it was what I had to hand.

Despite only just having started using the cheaper one, I felt impelled to buy a new better one, prompted by the - superstition ? - I mentioned above.

Does the quality of the container affect the liquid put in it ?

Well, in the case of making wine, sherry or whisky, most definitely. People who make those drinks go to great lengths to secure exactly the right barrels for their particular process.

I do realise though that an analogy is not a proof.

Steve Richards Bang On the Money

This is transcribed from television, specifically The Daily Politics Conference Special, 27.9.11. I wanted to preserve it because Steve Richards makes a point which is absolutely spot on.

The context: Andrew Neil, Danny Finkelstein & Steve Richards are discussing the Labour Party Conference so far, just before Ed M was going to give his Leader's speech; the pre-match build up. At the end of their discussion they start talking about the fact that up to now, as far as they are aware, neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown has been mentioned in any of the major speeches.

Steve Richards then says the following (when he says they're he means the current leadership of the Labour Party) -

Steve Richards: The Blair & Brown absence I think explains partly why they're all so bewildered. There were these two figures who dominated everthing in this Party for more than a decade ....

Andrew Neil: Since 1994 onwards !

Steve Richards: Since '94 onwards. And so what we're seeing really are sort of half-formed politicians stifled by that duopoly having to learn Politics in the full glare of scrutiny now.

Against Melanie Phillips

I read Melanie Phillip's latest blog post last night, about the speeches of Abbas & Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly. It is called Truth & Lies at the Theatre of the Absurd. (You can find the piece itself here: http://melaniephillips.com/truth-and-lies-at-the-theatre-of-the-absurd N.B. it is on that page, you need to scroll down a bit to find it.)

There was a particular sentence, a particular assertion, which really bothered me, & I spent a little time quoting it & arguing against it on Twitter. It is this:


"As certain Palestinian spokesmen themselves have acknowledged, Palestinian identity was itself constructed purely to destroy Israel."

I was & am completely nonplussed by this statement. I am at a loss how any intelligent adult could propose it seriously. It has continued to bother me overnight, so here are a few thoughts about that statement, the blog post as a whole, & Melanie Phillips' style of argument in general.

Her logic & tone remind me of a hard-core Unionist in Northern Ireland in the 1970s & '80s, reacting to the IRA and Republicanism generally, conflating them as the same thing. The essence of their position could be put something like this:

"These people are terrorists, seeking our destruction. You don't accommodate terrorists, you fight them."

This is a recipe for never-ending conflict.

I wonder if one reason she puts forward such extreme, and sometimes frankly nonsensical, ideas is that she wants to avoid, to shut down, discussion; because such sentiments as the one she wrote that I quoted at the start make discussion impossible.

Nonsense has a certain power, because it cannot be refuted.

This is true of many, perhaps most, (but not all) conspiracy theories. The problem with conspiracy theories is distinguishing between those that refer to genuine conspiracies, & those that are fanciful. Not all conspiracy theories are nonsense, people do sometimes conspire. To take a random example, MI6 & the CIA, with the knowledge & approval of Churchill & Eisenhower, did indeed conspire to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosadegh in Iran in 1953, & succeeded. This is not my opinion, or suspicion; it is a fact, a matter of record.

In the second part of Melanie's sentence I quoted at the start, she presents what is her opinion as if it were a fact. Rather, it is just sheer assertion. I note that the certain Palestinian spokesmen in the first part of the sentence are not named or identified further, nor is there any source given for their remarkable opinion. As evidence of the truth of the second part, the first part is worthless. I'm embarrassed for her, pointing out such obvious flaws. A clever child could spot them.

Often for me with Melanie's arguments, it is like trying to persuade someone of the following: that 2 + 2 = 4 is an inarguable reality; whereas 2 + 3 = 4 is an opinion, not a fact, & does not have equal weight with a proposition that is true.

Not all claims are true.

I have a bad feeling too that Melanie is one of those people who take disagreement, in this case coming from a left-wing source like me, as automatic confirmation that they are right. This is another way in which it is impossible to argue productively with them.

It should be noted that I am not putting these points forward because I disagree with Melanie politically, which I do. They would bother me just the same way from anyone, anyone who took any position.

I completely recognise that the Israeli Government has legitimate security concerns which need to be addressed in any peace negotiations in order to protect its people. I think though that by muddling opinion and fact so badly, in a perverse sense Melanie Phillips is no friend of Israel, defending that State in such a shoddy way.

Prospects for the LibDems

"Macbeth: They have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course ..."

- 'Macbeth' 5.7.1-2

(The difference between Macbeth and the LibDems at the moment though being that the latter have tied themselves to the stake; otherwise the logic is the same.)

The LibDems have nowhere to go, they have to stick with the Coalition. Their calculation - one born of despair, really - is that if the economy comes good by 2015, the planned time of the next General Election, that will justify their entering the Coalition (their narrative of acting in The National Interest), and they will benefit electorally from it.

At the moment their support has at least halved from what it was at the last General Election, from 26% then to in the range 11-13% now.

I think their calculation is wrong. If the economy does come right, or at least improve, by 2015, then the Tories will benefit and win outright. If it does not, Labour will win outright.

I make this prediction barring unforeseen political earthquakes (which is of course a complete get-out clause for me !)

I also present this with a caveat about my record as a political forecaster. I didn't foresee the Coalition. What I was expecting & predicting would happen at the last Election was as follows: I thought that the Tories would get more votes than anyone else, but not enough for an outright majority (I got that right at least). What I expected to happen next though was that they would form a minority Government which would last 6 months, be unable to enact its Budget, and fall on a no-confidence vote in the Autumn. In the meantime, Gordon Brown would have resigned and David Miliband would have become Labour leader. There would be another General Election in November, after which the LibDems would go into coalition with Labour.

So that shows how much my predictions are to be relied on. It should be noted that what I anticipated would happen was also what I wanted to happen.

One final thought, prompted by watching the LibDem Conference and thinking about their future: Politics is a blood sport.

Macaulay at full throttle on Machiavelli

This is not a blog post, it is just a piece of fun, a quote which is too long for Twitter. It is by Lord Macaulay, giving it both barrels, from near the start of his essay 'Machiavelli', written in March, 1827.

"It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well acquainted with the history and literature of Italy, to read without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which has brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity, seemed rather to belong to a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental axioms of all political science."

'Obloquy', 'hardened ruffian', above all 'palliating sophism' ! Outstanding stuff. Macaulay goes on to explain that in his view, this commonly held opinion of Machiavelli is far too simplistic. I could quote from this essay more or less forever. I recommend the whole piece very much indeed.

The Hari Affair

After months of suspense, now we know the full extent of what Johann Hari is admitting to, and it is very serious indeed. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-personal-apology-2354679.html) Firstly, there is inserting material silently from the books of people he was interviewing, in place of what they said in the actual interview. This is wrong but not appalling. I am puzzled as to why he didn't simply insert the material from elsewhere and just cite its origin. Then there is the inserting in his published interviews of material from interviews done by other journalists without attribution. In other words, plagiarism. It is distinct from the practice described above, and inexcusable. With or without journalistic training. it is hard to understand how Hari thought this was an acceptable thing to do. The final admission is by far the most serious. It is that he created a fictitious online identity - using a name which happens to be that of a Times journalist working at the moment, David Rose, with whom Hari went to university - with which he maliciously re-edited the wikipedia entires of 'people I had clashed with', as he puts it. This was done secretly, and more than once. It was not an isolated incident, not merely a single moment of anger or foolishness. The allegation that he had done this has been around for some time. At first glance it seemed absurd: what could possess someone to do such a thing ? It is so childish - 'juvenile', as Hari himself writes. The gain is nothing, and the potential loss of reputation if discovered so immense. There are people online with the skills and patience to unmask anyone doing it, despite any attempt at concealment. A key point of the whole affair, and Hari admits something along these lines in his apology, is that if a right-wing journalist or commentator had done what Hari has done, he would have attacked them strongly for it, and with relish. The Independent are backing Hari and he continues to be employed by them. The question for me is: whatever article he writes next, how will anyone take it seriously ? Will it not be greeted with derision ? Finally, Hari refers in his apology to 'the most basic ethical rule: don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.' That seems to me so tortuous a way of putting it that the meaning almost disappears. Here's a simpler way: 'Do as you would be done by.' ADDENDUM: On reflection, I find Hari's apology even less satisfactory than I did at first, and am surprised that The Independent printed it as it is, or thought it was sufficient. The only motive for silently inserting quotes from books by his interviewees in his finished pieces is to make his interviews seem better than they were. The reason Hari gives is a transparently inadequate rationalisation. His defence that because he lacks proper journalistic training, he didn't realise plagiarism was wrong is absurd. If you notice, the apology constantly seeks to minimise the offences by being deliberately vague about details. With each of the three misdemeanours, it is important to know the extent of it in order to judge its seriousness. In each case, how many times did he do it exactly, and over what period ? For instance, with the wiki-trolling: who precisely were the targets ? How many times did he interfere with their pages ? What alterations did he make ? Over what period of time did he do it ? Accurate answers to those questions are vital for the reader to determine his or her opinion of what took place. All in all, Hari is trying to apologise without really doing so, and for some reason The Independent has allowed him to do it. Regarding either Hari or the paper, it won't do. (By far the best reaction to all this I have seen is by Bagehot for The Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/09/unethical-journalism )

Why do the Unions go on funding Labour when the Party doesn't do exactly what they want ?

Tories love to taunt the Labour Party by saying that it is in hock to the Trade Unions. A more complicated version of this is to say that Labour is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Unions. But the people making these taunts know that they are not true. It is true that about 87% of Labour's funding does come from the Trade Unions (source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/25/labour-party-donors-unions). But Ed Miliband refused to back the strike action taken by four Unions in June this year, and reiterated that refusal in his speech to the TUC Congress yesterday, a position that was greeted by boos and heckling.

So given that the Unions are overwhelmingly Labour's main source of funding, why won't the leader of that party do exactly what they want, and why do they put up with it and go on funding the Party ?

The answers come if you consider their alternative. They are free to withdraw funding and therefore bankrupt and destroy Labour, and set up their own new Party whose policies would be under their complete control. The problem is, no one would vote for it, and they know this. Labour may not give the Unions everything they want, but they are a viable political party with a network of activists, historical roots and a base of support in the country, which can and have been translated into becoming the Government. Ed Miliband, or any Labour leader, may appear to hold a weak hand because of Labour's financial dependence on the Unions; but on the other hand he knows, and the Union leaders know, that the Labour Party is the best offer they are ever going to get in terms of meaningful access to power, and that effectively the Unions have nowhere else to go.

This explains what is otherwise a puzzle: why the Unions would go on supporting a Labour leader they were primarily responsible for installing who does not support them on strikes over what they regard as critical issues for their membership; and why they would go on funding the Party of which he is a head.

Invasion of Iraq 2003: A Hideous Mistake

"SIR MARTIN GILBERT: Was it then a weakness in the pre-March 2003 discussions that somehow voices weren't raised, and experts and knowledge weren't put on the table that there could be this massive deterioration [in the security situation in Iraq post-invasion] ?

RT HON TONY BLAIR: There was very much discussion of the Shia/Sunni issue, and we were very well aware of that. What there wasn't -- and this, again, is of vital importance and this certainly is a lesson in any situation similar to this -- people did not believe that you would have Al-Qaeda coming in from outside and people did not believe that you would end up in a situation where Iran, once, as it were, the threat of Saddam was removed from them, would then try to deliberately destabilise the country, but that's what they did, and there are some very important lessons in that ... "

- Tony Blair giving evidence at The Chilcot Enquiry, 29th January 2010, p.194 (http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/oralevidence-bydate/100129.aspx)



"I mean the truth is what got really difficult, far more difficult than anyone imagined, was when you got external factors joining up with internal factors to try and cause chaos and instability; by use of terrorism, by suicide bombers, by, you know, roadside bombs ..."

- Tony Blair, referring to both Iraq & Afghanistan, interview for The Times, 9th September 2011, by Philip Webster & Richard Beeston (http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/ten-years-after-9-11-the-battle-is-for-an-open-world-not-a-closed-one/)


How governments are run, whether in theory (the constitution) or practice (the given particular administration) may seem a tiresome detail of interest only to political nerds and policy wonks. But in fact it is vital because how decisions are made crucially shapes what decisions are made, and those decisions often have very wide consequences. The decision by the US and UK Governments , with support from only Australia and Poland, to invade Iraq in 2003 is a perfect illustration of this point.

In the events running up to the invasion of Iraq, one critical similarity between Tony Blair's government and the Bush Administration is that they were both run by tight cabals who were contemptuous of disagreement within their own wider governments. This was a key structural feature, in fact a weakness, in both governments which first made the decision to invade possible, and second for it to happen without any adequate plans for the aftermath. Dissent was marginalised; caveats and those raising them excluded. Furthermore, Blair's cabal was contemptuous of public opinion in Britain, which was generally at best puzzled by the need for or at worst actively hostile to the invasion. The Bush cabal meanwhile were contemptuous of international opinion.

Invading Iraq at all was a dumb decision. But the error was compounded a thousandfold by the incredible incompetence of how it was carried out, particularly the complete failure to plan properly or at all for what would happen once Saddam's forces had been defeated. Their planning did not go beyond 'We'll go in there with overwhelming force, we'll knock Saddam over, then everything will be alright.'

Tony Blair's contention, made in his evidence to the Chilcot Enquiry in 2010, that: a) everything would have been alright but for the interference of Al-Qaeda and more especially Iran; and b) that interference could not have been foreseen, are both ludicrous coming from an intelligent man. Such feeble reasoning merely highlights how indefensible the invasion was. I found it staggering in 2010, and do so now reading over it again, that Tony Blair was not ashamed publicly to reveal such a flawed and limitted understanding of the country he was proposing to invade, and of the dynamics of the region. He was the Prime Mininster of the United Kingdom. He cannot have lacked for experts. One can only presume he was not listening to them.No one knows or will ever know the number of Iraqis who have died in the internal conflicts since the invasion of 2003. Estimates, which is all there are, vary greatly. You can see some for yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War. It is reasonable to say it is more than 100,000 people. The fact that we don't know is a kind of extra injury to the people of Iraq, and emphasises our recklessness in that country.


"I also think however that in the action in Libya we're able to learn from the experiences particularly in nation building in Afghanistan & Iraq, but we've also got to hope by the way that in Libya you don't get the same external forces as you got in Iraq particularly, and in Afghanistan, destabilising the situation. Now personally I'm pretty optimistic about that, I think there's every chance Libya will get on its feet, and that would be great ..."

- Tony Blair, 'The 9/11 Interview', with Jon Sopel, BBCNews, 10th September, 2011 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14864513)

There is a constant implication in Tony Blair's remarks about the invasion of Iraq that I find infuriating. It is that the invasion itself took place in a kind of historical vacuum, in which none of what eventually happened could have been foreseen. In essence, saying that there had never been such a thing as a counter-insurgency campaign before and therefore there were no precedents or experience to help the invaders anticipate what might happen, they had to start from scratch. This is so obviously wrong that it is insulting, somewhat like Gordon Brown's claim that the banking disaster and credit crunch of 2007-8 came from nowhere and could not have been predicted. You have to have effectively no knowledge in order to believe either.

Here are a very few major counter-insurgencies that were available to serve as potential models, and provide warning of pitfalls:

British:

1. Malayan Emergency 1948-60

2. Aden Emergency 1963-67

3. Mau Mau Rebellion (Kenya) 1952-60, though this was a brutal & disgraceful campaign on our part.

4. EOKA in Cyprus 1955-9

French:

1. Indochina 1946-54

2. Algeria 1954-62

That's just for 2 countries fighting them in only a 20 year period and post-WWII. I'm labouring the point. There are innumerable examples. A two minute search on Google using the term 'Counter-insurgency' will start you off and direct you to all you need to know.